Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)

24/1/17 – We have had the following though today from the EU – Health and Food Safety e-News update – 24/01/2017.  SAV.

So here we go yet again – now we are going to witness the creation of an ‘expert’ group called the ‘Platform on Animal Welfare’  who will work together; and who have so far produced a series of very expensive reports to inform us that citizens of the EU are very concerned about the welfare of animals !

We could have left out all of the high gloss, very expensive reports and done the job to basically tell them that for £10 at most.  But then they never listen to us (welfare groups) about anything; the huge call for a maximum journey time for animals in transport of 8 hours being just one example.  Millions of EU citizens voiced their opinion and disgust, and it resulted in ………… nothing in the way of action by EU ‘experts’.

While we are here, lets bring up the issue of live EU animals being transported to Turkey for slaughter.  Watch the videos to see how our ‘EU experts’ such as Mr Van Goethem are enforcing the 5 freedoms and EU Regulation 1/2005 protecting animals during transport as they head off for slaughter into Turkey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOVtq-M0-Is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udReHkAumrY&feature=youtu.be

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/763/168/053/eu-commissioners-fail-live-animals-transported-to-turkey./

As you can see in our many post which we have provided links to at the end, we are currently in a position where the EU is even currently unable to even start to enforce its own animal welfare regulations (such as Regulation 1/2005 for the so called ‘protection’ of animals in transport – what an EU JOKE !) on live animal transport – both within many parts of the EU member states, and certainly for live animals being exported to Turkey.

This is how good; or should we say ‘utterly useless’ major EU ‘official’ people are.

And so what do we hear now ? – the creation of an EU ‘expert’ group called the ‘Platform on Animal Welfare’ who will spend millions of Euros and many, many months to provide yet further reports on what we consider to be the bloody obvious to all – that most ‘ normal and sensible’ (non EU official) put animal welfare high on their list of priorities.

The very expensive, glossy, great looking reports produced so far inform us for example, we have the following statement:

Looking at country results, it appears that more than four out of five respondents in each of the Member States consider the welfare of farmed animals to be “important” but with varying degrees.

Almost every respondent (99%) in Sweden, Finland and Portugal consider animal welfare to be ‘important’, in comparison to respondents (86%) in Croatia, Hungary and Poland, the countries with the lowest proportions of respondents.

That’s really great information Mr EU; but the question is – so what action are you taking to benefit animal welfare protection ?

With over 11 years experience in the welfare of animals and their countless abuses  within Serbia, we know that for example, the vast majority of Croatians do not consider animal welfare to be very important.  But they want to join the EU and take billions of EU Euros for …  what, corruption ?

Do we have to have glossy reports from EU experts at huge cost to explain that to us Croatia is not so good at animal welfare as Sweden ? – maybe this is all that ‘expert groups’ can really do – spend lots of money to inform us of the obvious – stuff we already know – and then finally for the experts to not actually take any action to rectify what is being said, shown and petitioned throughout Europe by the welfare groups ? – What a complete and utter waste of time and money, but oh how so very typical EU officialdom  – I think the term we have here in the UK to describe this is ‘jobsworth’ – people who in reality do nothing actually trying to justify their job and existence by producing useless and obvious information for the masses – information they already know  !

It is also interesting, but no surprise at all to us, that from the report:

More than four in five respondents (82%) believe that the welfare of farmed animals should be better protected than it is now. More than two in five Europeans (44%) hold a stronger view, responding with “yes, certainly”, while more than a third (38%) of respondents believe that the welfare of animals should “probably” be better protected than it is now.

Who really cares if it is 70%, 80% or 82% ? – people want animals better protected.  They want action from the EU experts who produce such crap.  Again, something we have known for years, but something which the leaders of men at the EU do not appear to be able to pick up on without a glossy and very expensive ‘book of the bleeding obvious’ being placed in front of them.  Even after this, will they act ?

One of the best statements comes at the start of the report publication – it declares:

Animal welfare legislation has evolved during this time, in accordance with citizens’ expectations and market demands. In 1998, an important step was taken called the Council Directive 98/58/EC, which provided general rules for the protection of farm animals kept for the production of food, wool, skin or fur or other farming purposes.

The rules were based upon the European Convention for the Protection of Animals kept for Farming Purposes and reflect the so-called ‘Five Freedoms’:

– Freedom from hunger and thirst;

– Freedom from discomfort;

– Freedom from pain, injury and disease;

– Freedom to express normal behaviour;

– Freedom from fear or distress.

 (Don’t the videos from Turkey above show all this ? – we think NOT – SAV).

The Lisbon Treaty adopted in 2009, amending the ‘Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union’, acknowledged the recognition that animals are sentient beings.

The amount of data and video evidence obtained by EU animal welfare organisations over the last 5+ years regarding EU animals exported live to Turkey has clearly shown that the EU in its official expert capacity is utterly incapable of enforcing the 5 freedoms for any of the EU animals being exported there – the 5 freedoms they bleat on about in their documentation, which in reality means absolutely nothing.  As is usual, the EU says one thing on paper, declaring that everything is hunky-dory, but the actual reality obtained by the welfare groups on the ground and in the trench shows that they are self declared incompetents (Mr Van Goethem) and cannot enforce anything even coming near to the 5 freedoms when the evidence is presented to them – they all adopt the ‘jobsworth’ stance as we have outlined earlier in this post.  I have to look like the rules are being enforced; and even when presented with evidence to the contrary, I cannot act.

Probably the most important thing to come from this report is that there is no overall ‘conclusion’ – something which you do normally witness in reports.  So whart exactly is the EU citizen supposed to conclude from all these acres of figures and declarations of the five freedoms ? – we don’t know because it does not really tell us how the experts are going to put all the figures they have obtained at great expense into meaningful practice.

Possibly the EU is embarrassed to inform us that over the years they have utterly failed to enforce the requirements of what is obvious to most that is outlined in the report anyway – we have to ask that with the statements made recently by Mr (I can do nothing) Van Goetthem; what changes for the future are we actually going to see on the ground; in Turkey, on the road in the EU ? – WHAT ? – what is the ‘expert’ group; the ‘platform’ actually going to do to ensure that member states of the EU actually take animal welfare seriously and actually do something to enforce it.  And just as importantly, what action are they going to take when it is shown clearly that the rules and regulations are NOT BEING ENFORCED throughout some EU member states ?

Or are we going to continue to witness the ‘head in the sand’ approach of Mr EU Van Goethem and his ‘experts’ in holding their hands up and saying ‘actually we can do nothing’ despite all the evidence.  Fortunately the UK is now pulling out of this utter farce of do nothings by using Brexit, and it will be able to work with excellent welfare groups to establish future trade deals with nations which for sure will be to the benefit of animal welfare.

As for the EU; does it have yet another new framework for its ‘expert’ team to work from, or after all this money being spent to inform us of the obvious, are we actually going to see the EU move ahead and do what it should have done decades ago – enforce the 5 freedoms and take aniaml welfare issues much more seriously, prosecuting for non compliance every time when necessary.

Time will tell, and we wait and watch with interest the expert actions of the newly formed Platform on Animal Welfare to witness exactly what they will do.  Somehow, experience tells us that these are just ‘weasel words’ which amount to very little apart from keeping people inventing new group names, gathering data and putting it all into pointless reports so that they can keep their useless jobs.  We hope we are wrong and that this information will enable animal welfare to benefit big time from the actions of the experts; but with the EU totally ignoring all our evidence on Serbia (currently gaining EU membership) over the past eleven years, to say that we have any hope in the experts doing anything would be a gross overstatement.

Well done UK; we are moving out and away from this utterly useless waste of space called the EU !

We shall see – Mark, SAV.

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 The PR we had today from the EU:

Animal Welfare: the Commission adopts the creation of a Platform

Today, the Commission adopted the creation of an expert group on animal welfare to be called the Platform on Animal Welfare. Vytenis Andriukaitis, Commissioner in charge of Health and Food Safety, had outlined this Platform in the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 14 November 2016: “The aim of the platform will be to encourage dialogue between different stakeholders on animal welfare issues (…); it should focus on a better application of EU legislation on animal welfare, the promotion of the very high animal welfare standards and the use of the Platform as a facilitator for the development and use of voluntary commitments by business operators”.

The Platform on Animal welfare will bring together all relevant actors in relation to animal welfare: business and professional organisations, organisations from civil society, independent experts from academic and research institutes, EU and European Economic Area Member States, the European Food Safety Authorities and relevant international intergovernmental organisations like the World Organisation for Animal Health.

In the coming weeks, the Commission will publish the call for application for the selection of the members of the Platform which will gather a maximum of 75 participants. The first meeting of the Platform will be held during the Maltese Presidency.

Background:

In 2015 the “Eurobarometer on attitudes of European towards animal welfare” showed that EU citizens consider animal welfare to be a very important issue and that the EU has a role to play in cooperation with the Member States and business operators.

The Commission held a first stakeholders’ dialogue on animal welfare on 23-24 February 2016 with all main stakeholders and Member States. There was a broad consensus that an enhanced stakeholder dialogue would bring added value at EU level. Based on this wide-ranged support by the Member States, the Commission continued with the operational procedure for the establishment of the Platform.

http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/SPECIAL/surveyKy/2096

SAV reference links: – currently under compilation, but well worth reading when we publish !

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